This morning, George S. McGovern, former Senator from South Dakota passed away at the age of 90 following a series of illnesses. Sen. McGovern was my political standard to whom I looked in the process of forming and developing my personal political philosophy for most of my adult life. From time to time, people have pushed me to describe my politics in a one or two word phrase, and in reply, I always say "I'm a McGovern Democrat."
Mr. McGovern was born in South Dakota in 1922, to a Methodist minister father. His mother was Canadian, and in fact, the family resided in Calgary for a brief time during McGovern's childhood. Both of his parents were Republicans, although not politically active. Perhaps because of the agricultural nature of his surroundings, young George developed an interest in the plight of the small farmer during the Dust Bowl and the Great Depression, and began to form his populist views at that time. He became a skilled debater in high school, and went on to Dakota Wesleyan University.
WORLD WAR II SERVICE
Within days of the bombing of Pearl Harbor, McGovern, at the age of nineteen, enlisted in the U.S. Army Air Corps. He went on to become a pilot flying a B-24 Liberator bomber in 35 missions over Nazi occupied Europe. He was highly decorated, receiving, among other medals, the Distinguished Flying Cross for making a hazardous landing and saving the lives of his crew.
It was during this flight that he experienced the single most horrifying incident of the war from his perspective. This flight took place December 20, 1944 (while my father was struggling in the snow during the Battle of the Bulge.) McGovern's plane, named Dakota Queen for his wife Eleanor, lost one engine and the other was damaged by flak. Because he was unable to return to his base in Italy, he flew to a British airfield on the small island of Vis in the Adriatic Sea. This field had a short runway usually used by fighter planes, and many of the bombers that had tried to land there crashed and their crews were killed. McGovern was able to get to the field, and landed his bomber safely, saving the lives of his men. On the way, he saw the sight that haunted him for most of his life.
It was necessary to jettison anything not necessary for the bomber to fly, in order to minimize the weight of the aircraft. He ordered his crew to get rid of everything. They were still carrying one bomb, which they had to drop. They were flying at low altitude, and McGovern saw the bomb drop. To his horror, he saw it fall straight toward a country farmhouse, far from any military presence. He could see the farmer running, then saw the farmhouse explode, with the farmer in the midst of the explosion.
For decades, he carried that image with him. He tried numerous times to learn the identity of the farmer and the exact location of the farm, but without success. Finally, in the 1970s or early 1980s, Sen. McGovern was the subject of a live interview on Italian TV, during which he told the story of that horrible day. During the broadcast, the station received a phone call from a man who identified himself as that farmer. McGovern connected with the man later, and talked with him. The man said that neither he nor any member of his family had been hurt in the incident, although it did destroy his farmhouse. He told McGovern, "I would have given a hundred farms if I thought it would help rid the world of Hitler."
This episode, perhaps more than any other helped to form Sen. McGovern's attitudes toward war in general, and particularly toward any war for which the necessity was questionable.
POLITICAL CAREER
McGovern returned from the war and earned degrees from Dakota Wesleyan and Northwestern University, culminating in a Doctorate in History. His doctoral dissertation was a study of the Ludlow Massacre coal mine incident, which further moved Mr. McGovern to the left politically. He became active politically and served in the House of Representatives as Congressman for South Dakota's 1st District from 1957 to 1961. He resigned from the House in order to run for the Senate, but in the interim, he was appointed by President Kennedy as Director of the Food For Peace program. He was elected and served as a Senator from South Dakota from 1963 to 1981.
During his Senate tenure, he strongly opposed U.S. involvement in Viet Nam. He twice introduced legislation with Oregon Republican Senator Mark Hatfield in an attempt to end the war legislatively, but both attempts failed. At one point, McGovern took out a second mortgage on his home in order to finance a half hour panel discussion on the bill on NBC. Following the broadcast, over a half million dollars in donations came in, and polls showed that a majority of Americans agreed with the bill. When Sen. McGovern learned of the defeat on the Senate floor, he gave a speech which contained the following statement:
Every Senator in this chamber is partly responsible for sending 50,000 young Americans to an early grave. This chamber reeks of blood. Every Senator here is partly responsible for that human wreckage at Walter Reed and Bethesda Naval and all across our land—young men without legs, or arms, or genitals, or faces or hopes. There are not very many of these blasted and broken boys who think this war is a glorious adventure. Do not talk to them about bugging out, or national honor or courage. It does not take any courage at all for a congressman, or a senator, or a president to wrap himself in the flag and say we are staying in Vietnam, because it is not our blood that is being shed. But we are responsible for those young men and their lives and their hopes. And if we do not end this damnable war those young men will some day curse us for our pitiful willingness to let the Executive carry the burden that the Constitution places on us
When confronted by a fellow Senator who said he was offended by the speech, McGovern said, "That's what I intended to do." In a response to the powerful Senate Armed Services Committee chairman John Stennis' suggestion that U.S. troops might have to return to Cambodia, McGovern declared,
"I'm tired of old men dreaming up wars for young men to fight. If he wants to use American ground troops in Cambodia, let him lead the charge himself.
When Robert Kennedy was assassinated during the 1968 campaign, McGovern stepped in briefly as a surrogate candidate to represent the positions Kennedy held.
After the horrifying "police riots" of the 1968 Democratic Convention, McGovern served as co-chair of the McGovern-Frasier commission which made fundamental changes to the Democratic nominating process by increasing the number of primaries and caucuses and severely limiting the influence of party insiders and the so-called "smoke filled rooms." In January, 1971, Sen. McGovern announced his candidacy for President, which was a huge departure from the norm, in that candidates usually did not announce until much closer to the election.
1972 ELECTION
In 1972, Richard Nixon was running for re-election, with his Vice President Spiro T. Agnew. The election took place before the scandals that rocked the administration and caused sea changes in the way Americans viewed government. Agnew, after being reelected was found to have taken large kickbacks and bribes while he was Governor of Maryland, and was forced to resign. Gerald Ford, a congressman from Michigan, was appointed to take his place. The Watergate scandal, which revealed corruption and felony criminal violations all the way up to the President himself, began with the break-in to the Democratic headquarters in Washington, D.C. by a group of burglars authorized by the President.
Of course, we knew nothing of any of this prior to the election, although there were those of us who were far from surprised.
During the primary season, Sydnee and I, living in Madera, California, were intrigued by McGovern's positions and speeches. My childhood best friend was killed in Viet Nam in 1970, and for that and other reasons, I was strongly opposed to the Viet Nam war as being immoral and unjustified. Although I was interested in McGovern, I'd read a statement in an interview that I questioned, so one day I phoned his campaign headquarters in Fresno. The person I spoke with said he'd get back to me, and good as his word, returned my call in a few days with an answer that satisfied my reservations. He invited me to stop by their office, which I did in just a few days. They gave me a tour, and asked if I'd be interested in working on the primary campaign in Madera County. He gave me the names of volunteers and the meeting address.
At this time, spring of 1972, Sydnee was very pregnant with our second child Andy, who was born that year in August. We went to the meeting and learned that they needed volunteers to go door to door, handing out pamphlets and answering questions. Obviously, Syd couldn't do this, so she was given telephone sheets and basically did the same thing on the telephone, as well as doing "get out the vote" work. I would come home from working all day, have a quick dinner, then meet my cohorts and spend several hours visiting people and campaigning. On Saturdays, we'd go to small towns in the county and spend the day campaigning. It was tiring and exhausting and exhilarating.
The primary was held in June, 1972. We voted, then that evening went to a small farm out in the county for a returns party. It turned out the farm was run by a young hippie couple who grew marijuana among other crops. All night long, people would go to the fields, harvest some bud, bring it back and dry it in the kitchen range oven. I have a strong memory of the smell in the air that summer night. All the while, a live band was set up in the living room, and they must have played "Sympathy for the Devil" twenty or thirty times. We were thrilled when the little black and white TV showed that McGovern won the California primary.
After that, his grassroots (no pun intended) campaign continued until he won the necessary delegates for nomination, and he was nominated. He chose Senator Tom Eagleton of Missouri as his running mate. We were prepared to go right to work as hard as we had to for the general election, but to our surprise and anger, the local Democratic party organization completely shut us out. We felt the proverbial door slam in our faces. After that, the story got very ugly.
AMNESTY, ABORTION, AND ACID
Sen. McGovern's most prominent position was to end the war in Viet Nam immediately. He promised to put into action the necessary mechanics to remove our troops at the earliest possible date, while withdrawing as safely as possible. He also favored amnesty for draft protestors, but with certain parameters. McGovern was personally opposed to abortion, but favored giving the decision to the individual states. Remember, this was at least a year before Roe v. Wade, and abortion was being contemplated as legislation, not as a Supreme Court case. McGovern never advocated legalizing drugs.
Despite this, during the run up to the election in 1972, an unnamed Democratic Senator told journalist Robert Novak that McGovern was secretly in favor of amnesty, abortion and legalized drugs, and that his plan was to move to enact all these should he be elected. Novak, a conservative, wrote the story, and McGovern was branded with the three word label.
Worse, after Thomas Eagleton was nominated as VP running mate, it was disclosed that he had suffered from depression and underwent electroshock treatments while hospitalized at a mental health facility. At first McGovern tried to defend Eagleton, but within a short time, Eagleton had to resign the ticket, to be replaced by Kennedy in-law Sargent Shriver. This was widely perceived as a lapse in judgment by McGovern, worse even perhaps, than McCain's selection of Sarah Palin. What was less widely published was the fact that Eagleton assured the selection committee and McGovern personally, on his oath, that his background was "clean" and that no medical or other problems would be revealed.
Robert Novak protected his source until 2007. In that year, Thomas Eagleton died, and Novak announced that his death allowed him to reveal that the "Democratic Senator" who told him the lies about McGovern's "Amnesty, Abortion, and Acid" policy was Eagleton himself. It is probably the worst example in modern American history of political sabotage of a member of one's own party.
McGovern would almost certainly not been elected anyway. He was a firmly liberal candidate in Cold War America, plus he was hampered by the secret lies and manipulations of the Machiavellian Nixon. It was hard for an honest mid-West politician to compete with such chicanery. Also, behind closed doors, McGovern was also sabotaged by other prominent Democrats such as Hubert Humphrey.
Ultimately, McGovern lost in a landslide, with Nixon getting 60.7% of the popular vote. He carried the electoral votes of only Massachusetts and the District of Columbia. After the election, when the Watergate scandal rocked the nation, a popular button said, "Don't Blame Me, I'm From Massachusetts."
As a student of these things, my theory is this: If not for all the dirty tricks and lies and manipulations, I believe McGovern would have performed better, perhaps winning 12 or 14 states electoral votes. That kind of showing would have allowed him to retain a fair amount of respect and power within the party. After the Watergate scandal broke, Nixon resigned, and Ford (never having been elected to national office) became president, I think McGovern would have been renominated in 1976, instead of Jimmy Carter, and I think he would have won. By that time, many of the issues of 1972 were more or less resolved. Of course, I believe that McGovern would have governed well, and that he would have been reelected, which would make it unlikely that Reagan, due to his age, would ever have been president. Without Reagan, we would not have had either Bush. The implications of the differences between that scenario and what actually happened are mind boggling, and would likely have created the America I've yearned for all my life.
Whistle stop in Madera, CA, May, 1972. Actress Shirley Maclaine stands to McGovern's left, Decathlon great Rafer Johnson is to McGovern's right in the back.
POST ELECTION
Sen. McGovern served in the Senate until his defeat in 1980. During his Senate career, he continued to work for the principles he held, and with Republican Senator Bob Dole, sponsored legislation to completely revamp the food stamp program, expand the school lunch program, and establish the WIC program for expectant mothers and infant children. During Bill Clinton's presidency, President Clinton appointed him ambassador to the U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization. During the Clinton administration, he and Bob Dole proposed a commission to work on the problems of global hunger by providing meals at schools to children in third world countries. President Clinton authorized a two year pilot program which was later made permanent during George W. Bush's administration. Sen. McGovern and Sen. Dole jointly received the World Food Prize in 2008.
2002
In September, 2002, the annual convention of the Montana Bar Association was held in Kalispell. I was practicing there then, and looked forward to attending, particularly when I learned that George McGovern would be the keynote speaker. Sydnee and I were excited to go, and the night of the main banquet, we wore our old McGovern campaign buttons on our suit coats. We went in to the lounge at the Outlaw Inn for a pre-banquet cocktail party. We'd barely gotten there when Sen. McGovern saw our buttons from across the room and made a beeline for us. Because of the nature of the gathering, we were only able to talk for a very brief time, but he was obviously very pleased.
The Senator gave a moving speech that night, and barely talked politics at all. He told the story of dropping the bomb on the farmhouse, and could not fight back the tears. He talked of his work since leaving the Senate working on world hunger relief with former Senator Bob Dole. He did have harsh words for the invasion of Afghanistan and the impending Iraq War. His speech had the audience transfixed.
After his speech as the dining room began to clear, we approached him to thank him for his speech and tell him how pleased we were to meet him. He was obviously happy to get the opportunity to talk with us some more. We talked about the 72 campaign, about what might have been. He asked me about my father's WWII service and had a lot of questions about it. He was also interested in our family and our work. He kept us there talking until it was clear we all had to leave, our conversation lasted most of a half hour. It was obvious that he was interested in learning about us, as individuals, and equally obvious that he was far more interested in learning about our lives, our work, and our families than in talking about himself. As we shook hands and said our goodbyes, he bent down and kissed Sydnee. As we left the hotel, and for a long time after that, she said in an amazed tone, "George McGovern kissed me! On the lips!"
I've supported other candidates in all the following elections, some more enthusiastically than others, but I've never been moved to work on a campaign since our experience in 1972. Sydnee ran for city council in 1997, but was defeated by an entrenched incumbent. Other than our interest (my almost pathological interest) in politics, we've had no more direct involvement than that. I cherish my memories of fighting the good fight all those years ago, and I'm filled with emotion today: nostalgia, regret, a feeling of "what might have been."
"There is a tide in the affairs of men.
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune;
Omitted, all the voyage of their life
Is bound in shallows and in miseries."
Wm Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar" Act IV, Scene 3
Wm Shakespeare, "Julius Caesar" Act IV, Scene 3
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